


Facets of the Heart

by Sword_Kallya



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Also a little bit of self harm, At this point they just go up when I figure out how to introduce the character's gem, Chapters range from short to really really short., Chapters subject to being reordered to make more sense, Character Study, Follows Canon mostly, If either of those are a problem just avoid Vole, Mild language in Vole's chapter, Multi, No I didn't make any of the gems up, Seffie's is worse, Theo's full name is annoying, Those are all real, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6388780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sword_Kallya/pseuds/Sword_Kallya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/Very/ odd AU, where everyone is born with a gemstone that signifies themself and their relationships.</p><p>Edit: index now has links to pictures!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bill Heterodyne

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hearts Freely Given](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689371) by [khilari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari). 



> So, my first story on AO3, and the first I've written in two years. Jeez. Well. This kind of came from reading khilari's "Hearts Freely Given," which everyone should go read because it's insanely better than this trash. Otherwise, well, enjoy!

Bill’s gem is blazing orange corundum, shattered through with flashes of color like an opal. Whole facets are devoted to single colors - quiet, thoughtful sapphire, blazing clear diamond, poisonous pink spinel. (The gentle, white milky quartz of an infant.) Even far from its owner, it burns, just cool enough to touch, with protection and love.

(Lucrezia never wore it.)

Agatha takes it out, as she does all the gems she keeps, on the Corbettite railway. She holds it and remembers stories, a statue, a man who played this gem on the stage. She remembers Uncle Barry telling her that half the white facet was for her brother, and half for her. He loves you.

Agatha cries.


	2. Barry Heterodyne

Barry’s gem is cooler than his brother’s, quieter. Where Bill’s was orange corundum, his is pale sapphire. For years, only his brother’s and Klaus’s gems showed in more than the tiniest flashes. Their stones were warm. They told him that when he found the right girl, his would warm up too.

When he hugs a five-year-old that might be possessed by the ghost of her mother, he realizes they were right. 

(He finishes the locket the next day.)

He gives his gem to Lilith and Adam, along with Agatha. There’s a new emerald chunk in the blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orange corundum and sapphire are the same kind of gem, albeit with different colors. It amused me.


	3. Lucrezia Mongfish

Lucrezia’s gem is a seductive pink spinel. It rests under her picture in Agatha’s locket, right across from Bill’s. There are three facets of color - Bill’s, Klaus’s, and her son’s.

(She never wore her own, either.)


	4. Klaus Wulfenbach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Operating on the assumption that Klaus is Chump.

Zantabraxus wears a gem that is not her own. Diamond-hard with purpose, blazing with determination, it has precise stripes in razor-edged lines - corundum and sapphire, amazonite and aquamarine and topaz. The streaks are broad and deep. She shows it to Zeetha, saying it was her husband’s. Zeetha strokes it gently, awed. “When he loved,” Zanta tells her, “he loved deeply.” 

(There was another line in pink spinel, once.)


	5. Zantabraxus, War Queen of Skifander

Klaus wears a gem that is not his own. Set at the base of the gold Wulfenbach tower he wears at his throat, it glows like Bill’s does(did), with the will to protect. It’s amazonite, so pure it’s nearly translucent, with tracings in diamond, aquamarine, and topaz. No one has ever had the temerity to ask him about it, but the rumors are whispered everywhere he goes. (It’s Lucrezia’s, it’s Bill’s, it’s his wife’s and he had her killed for disloyalty.) He never acknowledges them.

He offered the gem to Gil, once. It’s the only gift from him Gil has ever refused.

(When Gil takes over, he finds the pin on his father’s desk.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, amazonite is a real kind of semiprecious stone. We don't actually know much about Zanta, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.


	6. Lilith and Adam Clay

Lilith and Adam have the same gem. Oh, they have one each, but the colors and lines are the same: homey axinite, more brown than gold, with facets for each of their boys. The corundum and sapphire bleed into each other, with clear diamond defined precisely beside them. Lately their boys’ streaks have faded, just slightly, to make room for a blazing emerald. They don’t mind at all.

(They don’t have a mark for each other. They don’t need one.)


	7. Agatha Heterodyne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Into the main characters!

For thirteen years, Agatha’s gem was…  _ wrong. _

(She told Lilith that once, and Adam had to accidentally-on-purpose knock over a rack of tools before Lilith told her about the locket then and there.)

She was convinced that it was proof she was broken somehow. Gems should be warm, or cold, or  _ something, _ not just… inert. For thirteen years, there was a single filament of axinite. 

By the time she left Castle Wulfenbach, there were flashes of color everywhere in the emerald: Sleipnir’s peridot, Theo’s amethyst, even Zulenna’s morganite. Of course, there was a deep band, nearly a fissure, of Gil’s topaz. Her parents’ streak had widened, too. 

She sees Zeetha’s aquamarine and Lars’s tanzanite add to the turmoil of color while with the circus, but doesn’t get another chance to check it until the railway. 

Agatha stares.

It looks like her father’s, more opal than emerald, flashing with those she cares about. Large slivers of aquamarine, ruby, gold, and tanzanite are evident, but the rest is a riot of colors. A single glance turns up sinhalite, hawk's eye, charoite, chrysoprase, carnelian, and moonstone. (Vanamonde, Moloch, Maxim, Dimo, Oggie, Jenka.)

It  _ really  _ looks like her father’s.

(When Lucrezia takes over at the railway station, Violetta is the only one who notices the opal-fire emerald dull nearly to black. Violetta fingers her own garnet and looks away.)


	8. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach

Gil realizes far too late that his father’s habit of glaring down anyone who asks about his gem isn’t normal.

(In his defense, he only glares at people who actually ask, not just people who look.) 

A double-wide strip of ruby at such a young age is hardly normal, but Gil remembers childhood friends, and the words  _ big enough for both of us _ , and glares anyway. There are as many rumors about his gem as there are about his father’s. 

The band of diamond is for his father, that much is obvious, but the sardonyx is less so. After the hive engine, there is an emerald facet. Klaus regrets teaching him to make no apologies. 

After the fight on the streets of Mechanicsburg, there is a thin tracing of aquamarine, like the one on his mother’s gem. After the si vales valeo, the ruby is half as wide(all it needs to be, now).

(As the torchmen carry him away from his failure, he drops his topaz down to Agatha. It’s all he can do.)


	9. Tarvek Sturmvoraus

Smoke knight training involves lessons on how to keep one’s gem “under control.” Tarvek isn’t as good at it as he should be. His heart is far too open, his gem too warm, for a proper smoke knight. 

On Castle Wulfenbach, he meets Gil. Gil, who shows him the places they’re not supposed to go and within a week has a stripe of ruby in his plain topaz. (Not quite plain, there’s a tiny edge of what might be diamond, but Gil doesn’t mention it and Tarvek doesn’t comment.) Tarvek doesn’t(can’t) let topaz show through in his own gem. Gil screws up his face and concentrates for several seconds. When they both look down, the ruby-in-topaz is twice as wide as it was seconds ago. “Big enough for the both of us,” Gil says.

When Tarvek sees him again in Paris, the gem hasn’t changed at all. (And if there’s a fine line of topaz in the ruby where his sister’s rubellite tourmaline was, that’s no one’s business but his own.)

When the si vales valeo is finished, he discreetly studies his ruby. Sure enough, emerald and topaz form a four-pointed star through the center of his gem. A second glance shows a third line of garnet. 

Tarvek finds he doesn’t mind.


	10. Zeetha, Daughter of Chump

Before her mother took her as a zumil, Zeetha spent her spare time staring at her aquamarine gem. Everyone knew twins showed it in their gem. (Except her.) 

She had her mother’s amazonite, and a bit of her father’s diamond, and that was it. She sat, willing her brother’s gem to show up in hers, for hours. Nothing ever happened.

And then she goes to Europa, and finds a girl who clearly,  _ desperately _ needs  _ some _ kind of warrior training.

Never let it be said that the daughter of Chump backs down from a challenge!

* * *

 

By the end of the Siege of Mechanicsburg, Agatha’s emerald isn’t the only new color.

“Topaz? Who has topaz?”

Higgs leans over her shoulder to look. “The only person I can think of is Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.”

(Higgs doesn’t comment on the chip of smoky quartz.)


	11. The Unstoppable Airman Higgs

The only thing remarkable about Airman 3/c Higgs’s smoky quartz is how  _ worn _ it looks. The edges on the gem were clearly there, but just… aren’t, anymore.

When the aquamarine shows itself, Higgs nearly drops the pin.

(He breaks the mirror instead.)


	12. Klaus Barry Heterodyne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be at the very end, but I'm clearly having far too much fun to stop soon. I might move it to the end after I run out of characters to mess with. Enjoy your alternate universe speculation weirdness.

In Van Rijn’s laboratory, there is a mirror. If Agatha were to look into that mirror, she would not see herself.

Instead, there would be a young man, almost the exact image of the daguerreotype in her locket, with a trilobite pin on his lapel. The trilobite’s head would be set with a mystic topaz, almost the twin of her emerald save for the gray base.

(Agatha never even notices the mirror.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: mystic topaz was the original working idea for all Heterodyne gems, not just KB's. Look it up and replace the gray-green with green, orange, or blue for the rest of them.


	13. Lars

Lars has three gems, and is rarely seen wearing less than two.

The first time Agatha sees him, she stares.

“Oh, that’s not mine,” he says of the fire opal on his shoulder. “I play Bill onstage, see the painted lines? I’ve got a pink spinel for after he falls in love, that one’s painted too. The real one is my tanzanite.” He points to his belt; the gem practically glows with the force of color.

“Oh,” says Agatha. She loses words for a bit. “Will… ah… will I need other gems too?” She fingers her locket.

“No, Lucrezia never wore them. Kind of nutty, actually. You won’t need to take yours off, either, don’t worry. They mean too much to everyone.”

(When Lars lies, broken and bloody, on the ground, he presses the belt buckle into Agatha’s hands. There’s an emerald streak, straight down the middle.)


	14. Jenka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out a lot more angsty than intended.

Jenka didn’t realize what she was doing until it was too late to stop it.

Her moonstone was set into the top of Lady Jenka’s tiara, after all, and she couldn’t exactly wear that everywhere, even under her hat. Too much potential for it to be hurt.

So she just doesn’t wear it places.

(This shouldn’t bother her. Personal gem or not, it’s just a piece of rock.)

She stuffs the tiara back into her bag and clambers onto Fust.


	15. Zola Anya Talinka Venia Zeblinkya Malfeazium

Zola’s gem shifted from milky quartz to purple spinel the day she said her first sentence.

It’s been shading pinker, lately. She doesn’t notice.

(She should.)


	16. Vanamonde von Mekkhan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually managed humor, look!

Vanamonde’s sinhalite is the exact shade of his favorite blend of coffee. Most people don’t notice this, but it never fails to make him smile when he thinks about it.

After the Lady Heterodyne tears through his coffee shop, (it’s not actually  _ his _ , per se, but it might as well be) the sinhalite changes color - to the shade of the one cup he was able to drink. This likely should bother him more than it does. 

What startles him is the new emerald facet he spots during the siege.

(His grandfather swears up, down, and sideways that showing loyalty to the Heterodyne in one’s gem is normal for a seneschal. The Lady likely has her own bit of sinhalite, really.)


	17. Ardsley Wooster

Wooster wears a ring set with his citrine. It’s recognizable, and therefore a risk, but he’ll take it. He’s on permanent assignment anyway.

(He never tells anyone who the green quartz is for, just smiles and shakes his head.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually don't know who the quartz is for.


	18. Anevka Sturmvoraus

After the chapel, Tarvek sets the rubellite tourmaline into the throat of Anevka’s clank body. “I can make a necklace, if you’d rather,” he says.

“It’s fine.” The words are slurred. She’s not used to this yet.

Polishing the gem becomes the final step in the monthly maintenance “check ups.” Tarvek starts sucking on his fingers afterward, claiming the wiring shocked him. Anevka never bothers to think about it. Her gem has always been chilly, and this body can’t feel temperature changes.

(Three months before the circus makes its second visit to Sturmhalten, Tarvek has to bathe his hands in near-boiling water for an hour after the check up. That night, he finds his sister’s body.)


	19. Violetta Mondarev

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Violetta curses and kicks the wall of the train. “ _ Your _ family, you  _ know _ them, expecting any of them to keep you around when you’re a failure is just  _ stupid _ . Red  _ fire! _ ” She nearly pitches her garnet out the window. Everyone in her family has red gems, it’s not  _ fair _ . She doesn’t  _ want _ to be like them!

Tarvek made the setting for her.

Violetta snarls, but pockets the gem.

(She ignores the line of ruby until she finds out about the rest of Tarvek’s bodyguards.)


	20. Captain Vole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for implied self-harm and mild language at the end.

Vole’s obsidian has ragged edges. It’s been thrown against walls and rocks hundreds of times (even off a cliff, but only once). It hurts when it breaks. Vole thinks sometimes he needs that. 

After Wulfenbach pulls him out of the time freeze, the obsidian is worn thin enough to see through. Vole curses, but doesn’t throw it again.

( _ Damned _ if he has to do anything about the line of sardonyx, though)


	21. Theopholous DuMedd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Operating on the assumption that Theo's dad (I'm calling him Darius) was a hero, and that the household was therefore... volatile. Poor baby Theo.

For his eighth birthday, Theo asked for (and received) a Heterodyne Boys novel.

After dinner, Mother made her opinions on the matter clear.“You shouldn’t encourage him, Darius. _Heroing._ I thought you’d gotten over this!”

“He’s _eight,_ Serpentina. He’s allowed to be idealistic.”

Theo had learned by the age of five not to interrupt in these arguments. He _could_ stop this one, maybe, if he told them _why_ he wanted the book, but that would be worse. Really. He edged toward the door as Father hit the table.

“-give the boy a chance to _decide_ before you-”

When they stopped using his name, it was _really_ time to go. Theo fled, keeping to servants’ halls until he reached the hideaway in the back of the distillery. He shoved an armful of bottles aside to open a place to sit and sat down to read.

> _Klaus eyed the pair from across the hall. They were a study in contrasts: tall and short, outgoing and shy(er). Even their gems were opposite colors, intense orange and pale blue, though both had sizeable facets of their father’s onyx and their mother’s blue lace agate._

Theo eyed his amethyst, with its opposing facets of Mother’s watermelon tourmaline and Father’s imperial garnet, and breathed easier.


	22. Moloch von Zinzer

Though he’ll never admit it, von Zinzer has been pretty sure he was minion material for a while now. He’s always had somebody to follow.

For most of his life it was Omar. Even when Moloch hadn’t agreed with him, his brother was…  _ there. _ Beside him in body, and even when he wasn’t, the distinction between his hawk’s eye and his brother’s tiger’s eye was always difficult to find.

After Omar died, the dark stripes in his stone were  _ very _ clear for a long time. 

(He’ll admit to the garnet and white jade strips, but as far as he’s concerned, the titanite and emerald lines are the same stone.  _ The same stone. _ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Omar does /not/ get his own chapter. *shoos plot bunnies*
> 
> Edit: Changed Snaug's stone to titanite(formerly idocrase). I have rewritten my notes on this story no less than three times, and somewhere between the first and second time, Othar and Snaug switched gems. Sorry for the mixup.


	23. Bangladesh DuPree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get the feeling I should warn for surprising lack of blood.

Bang  _ loves _ her gem. Sardonyx is so perfectly  _ her _ , it’s even the color of blood! And the natural bands hide the true facets, that’s a plus. She has it set into her bracelet, just so she doesn’t lose it. (And if her brother’s chalcedony is on the other side of it, well, no one can tell the difference anyway.)

(Most of the time she refuses to tell people which one is which. Old habits die hard. Gil may or may not know hers by the  _ tiny _ line of diamond that she refuses to admit is there.)


	24. Sleipnir O'Hara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, headcanon time: Sleipnir's family wasn't anywhere near as bad as Tarvek's is, but they're kind of stereotypical nobility in that they have /no idea/ what to do with their kids.
> 
> /Why/ am I making Girl Genius more depressing than it already is?

Most of Sleipnir’s life, her  _ real _ life, has been on Castle Wulfenbach. With Theo, and his coat the color of his amethyst, and his annotated copies of the Heterodyne Boys stories. “They had good and evil parents too,” he said one night when they’re both drunk. “It… helps, sometime’.” He then fell off the chair. Neither of them remembered in the morning.

Sleipnir’s parents meant well, really, but there’s a reason topaz and amethyst are the only visible lines in her peridot.


	25. Mamma Gkika

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Experimenting with /trying/ to make my chapters longer. Not sure if I succeeded.

Mamma Gkika's is as loud as it always is. Actually, not quite - the evening bar fight is over, so it's quieter than average, but still. Jaeger bar. Gkika ducks a few punches and gestures for one of the girls to hand them more beer. “De drunker dey are,” she explains, “de eazier eet ees to t’row dem out.” Sabine grins and twists the tap for the cheapest ale they have.

“Hoy! Mamma!” one of the older boys shouts. “Vago haz not heard about hyu gem yet!”

“Hy em too tired tonight.” Three surgeries in two days did that to a person, even a jaeger. “Hyu tell heem. Hy can make shure hyu get eet right.” She takes off her turquoise and lets it dangle in the torchlight. The facets catch it and glow, making the gem appear to have a core of lava. Alexi promptly launches into tales of the Masters whose gems were visible in her own: Iscariot, Faustus, Innokenty, Lucius…

“Vot about dot vun?” Vago slurs, interrupting Alexi’s more-than-tipsy retelling of the sack of Krakow. “Who’z dot for?”

Gkika turns away. (Vago can almost hear her mutter “Dot’s Master Villiam’s.”)


	26. Moxana

When Moxana came to be, as the first of her sisters to be turned on, the first thing she was aware of was the item in her right hand. While Van Rijn checked her over, she lifted it to her face to inspect.

He spotted it fairly quickly for a Spark in fugue. “A pearl? I didn’t - Mein Gott. You’re  _ alive _ .”

Moxana sorted through her knowledge of her functions and brought out the tarot cards. She held up the Device, placed the pearl - a deep, fathomless blue that seemed to drink in both light and the beholder’s vision - on top, and looked back at him.

His brow furrowed, then cleared. “Yes, it’s yours. Do you know what a personal gem is? No? Then I should wake the rest of you before explaining.” He moved on to one of the other Muses. Moxana noted that his hand adjusted his left cuff - the one with a silvery gem struck with red set into the button. (Rutilated quartz, she’d learn later, and ruby)

Then Liza awoke.

_ Kinship _ hit Moxana like a hammer blow.  _ We belong to each other. _

(By the end of the day, each of her sisters’ pearls shimmered with the others’ colors: deep blue, light blue, pink, mauve, black, green, gold, gray, and white. They all knew without speaking that this was how it should be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a kid, I read an ad for "fathomless blue pearls" and loved the name. It was only when researching pearls for the Muses that I realized this isn't actually what dark blue pearls are called. I considered changing it, but the description was too perfect for Moxana.


	27. Tinka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is nothing to help me write fanfiction like a project I'm supposed to be working on. This was written over two days of class time when I was supposed to be researching for Psychology.
> 
> That said, the ending surprised me, despite the fact that I'm the one writing this.

It has been three human generations since Tinka has worn her pink pearl in public. With Master Payne’s Circus, she hid it where  _ no one _ would think to look and wore a cheap fake made of glass. (She hated it. A chunk of glass was no substitute for  _ one’s own soul. _ )

When the Prince’s men come for her, she does what would have Otilia shrieking in rage and does not fight. She allows them lead her to the Prince’s son, who claims her as the Storm King. She does not argue with him. (He might not harm the circus if she fought him, but she does not  _ know. _ ) 

He studies her, gently, without taking her apart. He is so, so careful with her, even when he wishes to use her to save his sister, that Tinka begins to believe that she might be safe here.

When Princess Anevka’s new body is finished, the Prince finds her. She manages to retain enough of her mind to entrust her pearl to his son, before the father finds it.


	28. Otilia/Von Pinn

Von Pinn stood in the corner of the nursery, one eye on the infant Heterodyne, the rest of her attention on the gem in her hand.

Otilia’s gem had been a silver pearl, set into her throat as her sisters’ were. It was  _ still there _ , even with Castle Heterodyne inhabiting her body. ( _ It _ claimed to have another gem elsewhere  _ too.)  _ The stone’s colors had been the only reminder she had of them, in the dark of the Heterodynes’ crypt.

Von Pinn was apparently different enough from Otilia to warrant her own gem. The rough chunk of jet was larger than her pearl, with sharp points and raw edges covering its surface. The irregularities hid her sisters’ colors.

Von Pinn glanced down at her claws. She supposed the new stone was appropriate, given what she was now.


	29. Xerxsephnia von Blitzengaard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly the internet's first Seffie angst. I did not write this intending to compare Seffie to _Violetta,_ of all people.
> 
> Also a lot longer than normal.

Slim hands disarmed the traps on Seffie’s bedroom door with practiced ease. Vaguely, she thought that it was a good thing she knew all of the traps’ positions by heart; she probably wouldn’t be able to see them past the tears in her eyes.

The rest of her mind was focused on ways to  _ show them all. _ Would Martellus have any nasty-but-nonlethal compounds for her to use? Laxatives seemed promising…

The hand with her kunzite’s ring flashed across her vision.

_ Damn! _ Losing grip on her plans for vengeance, Seffie threw herself on the bed and sobbed.

Grandmother had gathered the core of the family for the holidays. For the adults, that meant backstabbing and politics, but someone had decided to drill the children on what they’d learned from the Smoke Knight Codices. The day’s chosen section had been on control of one’s outward appearance, including the appearance of one’s gem.

Seffie effectively had those pages  _ memorized. _ She’d been far ahead of the others in answering every question and, frankly, she’d expected  _ some _ sort of backlash.

Her gem was always a tempting target for that.

She pulled off her ring and let the purple stone’s true, obsidian-streaked face fade in. That was something only the best Smoke Knights could manage: not only hiding the distinctive parts of one’s gem, but letting them show at will. Her cousins hadn’t been  _ wrong _ ; Seffie  _ had _ studied the Codex in order to find a way to change her gem’s color. (There wasn’t one. The only way to change a stone’s color was through drastic personality transformation.)

Still. Adalgisa had best sleep with one eye open for a while.


	30. Dimo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an earlier chapter, but I wanted to post Da Boyz ~~togedder~~ _together._ Maxim's may take awhile - the plotbunnies are fickle - but Oggie should be up sometime today.

After everyone regroups in the caves outside Mechanicsburg, Dimo  _ finally _ realizes that the other wild jӓgers have their partners’ gems in their own too. 

Mamma would laugh at him, he thinks. Jӓgers  _ need _ each other. There is a  _ reason  _ their battle cry is “We hunt!” Of  _ course _ , hunting in pairs and trios, they would get close. 

He checks his chrysoprase. Oggie’s carnelian and Maxim’s charoite take up about half the gem, with a slice of emerald between them. Perhaps Mamma would find this a bit much, but he can’t bring himself to care.


	31. Ognian Foglio

“Hallo, sveethot! Hy haz a prezent for hyu!”

“Get  _ off  _ of me, Ognian Foglio, I am  _ cooking. _ ”

Oggie pouted, then swiped a bit of the roast. “Iz vunderful!”

“Out!” Diorna Foglio, newly married, reached for the frying pan on the wall to threaten her husband. He snickered and let himself be chased into the bedroom. The lock clicked from the outside. “And  _ stay _ in there!”

Oggie grinned to himself. Diorna was  _ wonderful _ .

He grabbed her necklace - a bundle of leather straps that held her gem in place - off of the dresser and scrambled out the window.

Adalwolfa bounced over to him the moment his feet hit the ground. “Oh, hyu iz so  _ cute, _ schneakink out to get a prezent for hyu  _ gurl!” _

Her brother Spengler strolled out of a side alley at a more sedate pace. “How are these?” He displayed a pair of wrist cuffs, one engraved with flowers, one plain.

“Ho,  _ yez,” _ Oggie murmured. He stroked the engraved cuff, careful not to let his claws scratch the lilies. “Iz  _ perfect _ .” He fumbled Diorna’s andalusite and his own carnelian loose from his coat.

Spengler whistled lowly. An expert’s eye picked out the depth of the carnelian streak marring the andalusite, the dozens of overlapping slashes covering the carnelian.  _ They  _ care.

Carefully, he cut both loose from their wraps and set them in the cuffs.

By the time he looked up again, Oggie and Adalwolfa had gotten into a fight in the street. He sighed deeply.  _ “Hoy! Dollink!” _

Two heads popped out of the snarl of limbs and claws. “I’m finished,” Spengler declared, gesturing with a bracelet in each hand.

Oggie disentangled himself from the fight in record time. He snatched both cuffs out of Spengler’s hands and was climbing back up into the house before anyone could blink. “Thenk hyu!” he called back down. “Hy pay hyu later!”

“Go kiss hyu lady for me!” shouted Adalwolfa. He resolved to punch her later.

(Diorna’s grin was entirely worth the teasing he got afterward.)


	32. Gem Guide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By popular request, a guide to the various gems people have. I _have_ pictures, but I don't know how to post them. Advice?
> 
> Edit: Links to the pictures now up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternately titled: In Which Kallya Discovers That The Crappy Gems On Sale At Macy's For $30 Are _Not_ the Pretty Gems People Take Pictures Of And Post Online
> 
> Or: I'M GONNA STRANGLE THE STEVEN UNIVERSE WRITERS

  * Agatha: emerald, intense green, looks closer to an opal or mystic topaz than an actual emerald, absolutely covered by other gems
  * [Agatha's Emerald](http://www.jewelinfo4u.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/emerald-7-1.jpg)


  * Gil: standard yellow topaz, only four other colors (Tarvek, Agatha, Zeetha, Klaus)
  * [Gil's Topaz](http://www.hotel-r.net/im/hotel/es/topaz-20.jpg)


  * Tarvek: ruby, same color as his hair, three colors (Violetta, Gil, Agatha)
  * [Tarvek's Ruby](http://gaukartifact.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/content_1294198803.jpeg)


  * Violetta: garnet, very dark red, three colors (Tarvek, Agatha, Moloch)
  * [Violetta's Garnet](http://www.ajsgem.com/sites/default/files/ajs/styles/product-node/public/rhodolite-garnet-gro-00376.jpg?itok=-7pcc_53)


  * Zeetha: aquamarine, bright blue, five colors (Klaus, Zanta, Agatha, Gil, Higgs)
  * [Zeetha's Aquamarine](http://yourbirthstones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Aquamarine-300x300.jpg)


  * Wooster: citrine, yellow-gold, one color (unknown dark green quartz)
  * [Wooster's Citrine](http://www.jewelrywise.com/content/articles-horizontal/Citrine.jpg)


  * Bang: sardonyx, striped blood red and white, four colors (Klaus, Gil, her brother Deathwish, Vole)
  * [Bang's Sardonyx](http://i.imgur.com/ubf6Kbq.jpg?1)


  * Klaus: clear diamond, absolutely see through, five colors (Bill, Barry, Zanta, Gil, Zeetha)
  * [Klaus's Diamond](https://www.shapur.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/round-cut-diamond.jpg)


  * Bill: orange corundum/orange sapphire, orange so intense it looks like it’s on fire, easily mistaken for fire opal because there’s so many different colors on it
  * [Bill's Corundum](http://www.crystalvaults.com//images/crystal%20encyclopedia/sapphire_colored/orange_sapphire_header.jpg)


  * Barry: pale sapphire, color just dark enough that it is obviously not white, as many colors as Bill’s but they don’t obscure as much of the gem
  * [Barry's Sapphire](http://www.gemselect.com/photos/sapphire/sapphire-gem-284422a.jpg)


  * Lucrezia: pink spinel, very intense color, three small facets (Klaus, Bill, Klaus Barry)
  * [Lucrezia's Spinel](http://www.ajsgem.com/sites/default/files/ajs/styles/product-node/public/burma-spinel-gemstone-spi-00188-l.jpg)


  * Zanta: amazonite, very clear and blue color (amazonite is usually opaque and green), at least four colors (Klaus, Gil, Zeetha, Zanta’s kolee)
  * [Zanta's Amazonite](http://www.gemselect.com/photos/amazonite/amazonite-gem-333837a.jpg)


  * Vole: obsidian, worn with ragged edges, one color (Bang)
  * [Vole's Obsidian](https://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/n-d57o0b/fjb62nx/products/8292/images/25051/obsidian-black-rough-chunk1__14364.1397816125.1280.1280.jpg?c=2)


  * Gkika: turquoise, same color as her hair, the cracks in normal turquoise are where the other colors in her gem are, at least three colors (Various Heterodynes)
  * [Gkika's Turquoise](http://www.jewelrywise.com/content/articles-horizontal/15.14-turquoise.jpg)


  * Higgs: smoky quartz, plain brown and very worn, one color (Zeetha!)
  * [Higgs's Smoky Quartz](http://www.minerals.net/GemStoneImages/smoky-quartz-gem-316071a.jpg) (except with worn edges)


  * Klaus Barry: mystic topaz, gray base with all kinds of weird colors
  * [KB's Topaz](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTLSy2KagjkqM-UqY4k1qUzRzoz1BZlJMN8dX9mmM66zYdyz8sgmg)


  * Zola: purple spinel, very purple, no other colors
  * [Zola's Spinel](http://www.nickybakergemstones.net/images/thumbs/0000597.jpg)


  * Otilia/Von Pinn: silver pearl/jet, smooth with obvious colors for her sisters/ragged edges that hide shades of pearl, eight colors (Muses!)
  * [Otilia's Pearl](https://img0.etsystatic.com/000/1/5708678/il_340x270.299796232.jpg) and [Von Pinn's Jet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Sample_of_jet_2013.JPG/1280px-Sample_of_jet_2013.JPG)


  * Tinka: pink pearl, medium shade, eight colors (Muses!)
  * [Tinka's Pearl](http://venusjewellers.com/image/cache/catalog/semi%20precious/pink%20pearl-700x700.jpg)


  * Moxana: blue pearl, dark navy, eight colors (Muses!)
  * [Moxana's Pearl](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/blue-pearl-3228532.jpg)


  * Von Zinzer: hawk’s eye, blue/silver/black stripes, twelve colors (Agatha, Violetta, Snaug, Sanaa, Omar, other siblings)
  * [Moloch's Hawk's Eye](https://img0.etsystatic.com/001/0/6682207/il_570xN.400938180_ow5b.jpg)


  * Vanamonde: sinhalite, coffee-colored, at least two colors (Agatha, the Assistant)
  * [Vanamonde's Sinhalite](http://www.sinhalite.com/images/site2004/sinhalite-39.jpg)


  * Adam and Lilith: axinite, warm brown, four colors (Bill, Barry, Klaus, Agatha)
  * [Clays' Axinite](http://www.multicolour.com/picture/b_axinite.jpg)


  * Jenka: moonstone, translucent silver, no obvious colors
  * [Jenka's Moonstone](http://3.imimg.com/data3/EM/CK/MY-4380698/white-rainbow-moonstone-250x250.jpg)


  * Theo: amethyst, medium purple, three colors (Sleipnir, his parents)
  * [Theo's Amethyst](http://www.gemselect.com/other-info/graphics/amethyst-large_info.jpg)


  * Sleipnir: peridot, dark green, two colors (Theo, Gil)
  * [Sleipnir's Peridot](http://www.ajsgem.com/sites/default/files/Peridot-7.04cts.jpg)


  * Anevka: rubellite tourmaline, pinkish red, no colors
  * [Anevka's Tourmaline](http://i.imgur.com/ua8KPtU.jpg)


  * Lars: tanzanite, _incredibly_ intense blue-violet, at least one color (Agatha)
  * [Lars's Tanzanite](http://tanzanite.capetown/wp-content/themes/mercor/js/timthumb.php?src=http://tanzanite.capetown/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/7.15CaratRectangularAntiqueCushionTanzanite.jpg&w=470&h=345)


  * Seffie: kunzite, purple and gets _so much crap_ for it, no visible colors, would have one color if she let it (Martellus)
  * [Seffie's Kunzite](http://i.imgur.com/q7qwk3d.jpg)


  * Dimo: chrysoprase, yellow green, at least three colors (Maxim, Oggie, Agatha)
  * [Dimo's Chrysoprase](http://geology.com/gemstones/chrysoprase/lemon-chrysoprase.jpg)


  * Oggie: carnelian, red-orange,  _all the colors_.  _All of them._
  * [Oggie's Carnelian](https://www.healingcrystals.com/images/Cabochons---Carnelian-Cabochon-Free-Form-Extra-India-02.jpg)


  * Diorna Foglio: andalusite, green-brown, one color (Oggie)
  * [Diorna's Andalusite](http://www.gemresources.com/Images/8-5-Andalusite.jpg)


  * Maxim: charoite, swirly purple, three colors (Dimo, Oggie, Agatha)
  * [Maxim's Charoite](http://www.gemselect.com/graphics/charoite-gem-info-large.jpg)


  * Deathwish: chalcedony, red-brown, one color (Bang)
  * [Deathwish's Chalcedony](http://www.gemdat.org/photo-1765.html)


  * Snaug: Titanite, dark green, at least one color (Prof. Mittelmind)
  * [Snaug's Titanite](http://www.patrickvoillot.com/images/photos/grandes/titanite-sphene-chromifere.jpg)


  * Omar: tiger's eye, gold and brown, one color (Moloch)
  * [Omar's Tiger's Eye](http://www.gemselect.com/other-info/graphics/tigers-eye-gem_2_large.jpg)


  * Serpentina: watermelon tourmaline, green and pink, two colors (Darius, Theo)
  * [Serpentina's Tourmaline](http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Natural-Watermelon-Tourmaline-Octagon-Emerald-Cut_109579432.html)


  * Dumedd: imperial topaz, red-orange, two colors (Serpentina, Theo)
  * [Dumedd's Topaz](https://johndyergems.com/catalog_pages/gemstone-Topaz2116.html)


  * Saturnus: onyx, black, no visible colors
  * [Saturnus's Onyx](https://www.healingcrystals.com/images/Coin---Black-Onyx-Coins-02.jpg)


  * Teodora: blue lace agate, blue-white, at least two colors (Bill, Barry)
  * [Teodora's Agate](http://designerjewelrysupplies.com/product/blue-lace-agate-gemstone-cabochon-25x18mm/#prettyPhoto%5Bproduct-gallery%5D/0/)



**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [En Cabochon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8753329) by [Anemira_Lynx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemira_Lynx/pseuds/Anemira_Lynx)




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